The CLEANSE

I have decided to do a cleanse. I've been wanting to do one for years. In fact, I bought a cleanse "kit" from GNC just before I got pregnant with Will and it's still sitting in my closet, untouched and expired. I have a few different reasons for wanting to do this....

1. I do think it's important to eat good foods and although I don't always do that, I think that ridding my body of the bad things occasionally is a good thing. I'm hoping this cleanse will do that.

2. I've been wanting to (and have begun to) eat organic and get rid of artificial sweeteners altogether. This means no diet cokes (pops, etc) no splenda in my coffee, no "light" drinks, no crystal light. All things I've been terrible about over the past few years. I figured a cleanse (the right one) would help me jump start into my new eating habits. Plus I need to stop some bad eating habits that I currently have (putting the boys to bed and grabbing the cookie dough/cottage cheese/ice cream tub and going to town) I'm hoping this "re-set" of my eating habits will help with that as well.

3. And finally, as I get older and especially since my boys were born I'm becoming very aware of how precious life is and how important it is to take care of ourselves. My body is not only mine now, it's the body of my boys' mother. Cancer runs rampant in my family, and the thought of getting cancer or some other illness and thinking back, wishing I had eaten better, avoided processed and artificial foods and sweeteners, wondering if that contributed at all, wishing I had made different choices, well, I can't even imagine.

Recently my sister in law started The Cinch diet. It has a 5 Day Fast Forward eating plan, which is my new cleanse. Among other things, it: "promotes "clean eating" of healthy, natural foods without artificial ingredients, additives, or artificial sweeteners........eating only organic eggs, spinach, almonds, raspberries, and yogurt or vegan alternatives........It may also help reduce cravings and encourage an appreciation of the natural flavors of whole foods..........The purpose of the five-day plan is to help you to detox from unhealthy foods without feeling deprived."

Basically you are supposed to eat different combinations of the 5 foods, 4 times a day. They have the recipes figured out for you. It's very simple. When I ran across this I thought "perfect!" I love all these foods (minus the raspberries - don't like the seeds) and I already eat them often. How hard can this be? Well, I'll tell you. At the end of day 1 I'm feeling sick and can. not. believe. I have 4 more days of this. I'm not sure why because every meal tastes good to me. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe the mass, bulk amounts of these foods staring at me every time I open the refrigerator makes me ill. Blech. I seriously want to stop right now. ....but..... I think at this point I'm going to push through for a bit longer. If for no other reason than I have so much of all of these foods, and I don't want to be wasteful. I know that if I can get through this week I'll feel better, I'll feel a sense of accomplishment and I may have even lost a couple of pounds. I thought it would be really easy since I do enjoy these foods, but ugh. At this point it's going to take some serious self motivation to get through it. We'll see....